Cairo, 1128

There was chaos in the streets as the Crusaders occupied Cairo. The final battle had very nearly been an after thought, with the young, freshly crowned Sultan dramatically over-estimating the valor of his men yet again. When the relief force out of the south had attacked the Byzantine camp, he actually abandoned the walls to join the attack. Though he and a single man from his guard escaped, they were later found dead on the road, and Cairo was unheld against the Greek army.

Crusaders Ksiros and Amarinthou immediately struck out for the city center to assume control and try to restore order, taking most of the army with them. Vissarionas rode carefully towards the Christian quarter, hoping to find good news of his old stomping grounds. His men had explicit orders to harm no one in clearing a path through the swirling masses, and in general the people shrank back from the advancing soldiers and gave way. Still, progress was slow, and it took most of an hour to even reach the edge of the quarter.

Signs were not good. The streets had been blocked off with barricades, some of them obviously only recently abandoned, and there was no noise, no sign of life from outside them.

'Tear those down. Break me a way in. No, no, give me the axe!'

Impatiently Vissa tore at the wood, throwing his whole body into the work. A dozen of his guardsmen helped with pry bars and swords while the remaining soldiers watched their backs warily, and soon the path was clear. Rafi came forward to enter with Vissa, but Vissa waved him back with a curt gesture and went in alone.

...moments later he was back, gray faced and visibly ill.

'They burned it. Burned it right to the ground, with all of them in it. Coptics, Gnostics, Greeks... women, children... Hundreds of them huddled in the church, and the God cursed butchers just put it to the torch and left it there.'

Vissa abruptly bent double and emptied his stomach all over his boots. Many of the men looked uneasy at this display of weakness, but Rafi went to him and helped him straighten back up, and then spoke soothingly to him,

'M'lord some must have escaped! The whole quarter couldn't have been packed into the church together, it's simply impossible! Many, perhaps even most, got away, fled to the countryside.'

Grimly Vissa shook his head, 'More like the Sultan drug them out and killed them where their corpses could feed his crops. No, it's just like Antioch Rafi. I failed! I failed them all again! If there's a Christian alive in this city today it's only because he lied about his faith, and what sort of man could bear to do that?'

'We spared them! We came in peace to protect our own, and we turned the other cheek! For what?'

Vissarionas ek Lesvou threw back his head and screamed like a condemned man being flayed on the rack. The few citizens of Cairo who were still about drew back at the sound. Rushing out into the street beyond his stunned bodyguards Vissa siezed a young man, too young to serve in the military as yet, and roared at him in choppy Arabic,

'We spared you! Why, why was this done? We came to save them! WHY?'

The boy was shaken roughly, but made no resistance, no sound at all. At last Rafi pulled Vissa away and waved for the boy to move on. The young Egyptian fled quickly, but Vissa was dead weight in Rafi's slight arms, and he could not hold him up. Both of them collapsed in the street while the guards gazed on uncomfortably and kept watch. In a quiet, broken voice Vissa spoke for Rafi's ears alone.

'Why... why do we live this way Rafi? If God is great why does he not turn the hearts of the infidel away from their wickedness? If the temptation to evil is a test, then surely all men fail, and all are consigned at last to Hell, infidel, believer, heretic, and atheist alike... and the Emperor dodders towards the grave, leaving our Empire once more in the hands of an mad, destructive incompetent. Are we better? Was Alexandria a symbol of Byzantine superiority?'

'Is Cairo? These people, they... they've just seen our kind butchered by the hundreds, and we sought no vengeance. They will not respect us, they will not respect the need for order.' An angry sigh escapes from Vissa, and he begins to stand again, having regained his strength. First he whispers one last question for Rafi,

'What must I do to stop being a butcher Rafi?'

Shaking his head to clear it, Vissarionas begins to order his men to mount back up when a messenger arrives from the south gate, where the Crusaders entered the city. He roughly salutes Vissa before speaking,

'M'lord there's a pack of Bedouin askin' after you at the gate. Say they're friends. We nearly filled 'em with arrows when they rode up, but they were carrying this.'

So saying the man produces a crudely drawn replica of the ek Lesvou family crest against a white, cloth background. On one corner are written a few Arabic letters.

The change in Vissa is palpable. His stance strengthens, and his back straightens. He gestures imperiously for the messenger to be off, and then kicks his boots against an upturned paving stone to knock the worst of the vomit off before mounting. At his curt order the men fall in behind him, and they all ride back to the gate at a faster pace, roughly clearing any slow moving peasants from their path.

Waiting there, just inside the archway, are twenty or so Bedouins wrapped head to toe in loose, light cloth. None of them can be told from any other at a glance, but even so Vissa all but leaps from his horse and rushes forward to grab a slight figure in well made white garmets and hug it, no, her tightly. A single gesture from Vissa is enough to indicate that Stephen is to take command of the guardsmen and give his general some time. The Bedouin spits out some rapid fire Arabic to her companions and then the two of them adjourn, hand in hand, to the nearby guard house.

(...to be continued...)